By Chris Edwards
[email protected]
WOODVILLE – On Monday morning, Tyler County Judge Milton Powers presented the county’s proposed budget for the 2025 fiscal year.
Powers reminded everyone in attendance at the Commissioners Court meeting that, at this point, it is only a proposed budget, but that the filing deadline was approaching for the commissioners to approve the proposal, as of Monday. The final budget will be filed in two or three weeks, Powers said.
The proposed budget for 2025 works off of a projection of $12,406,643 for the general fund from total revenue sources for the county, with $8,724,134 of that coming from ad valorem taxes, based on a tax rate of $0.5619 per $100 of valuation.
That proposed tax rate is a decrease from the current tax rate for the general fund, of $0.5807. Powers said, while bringing the budget proposal to the court’s attention that there has been consternation among many Tyler County residents about appraisal increases, represented on certified preliminary values that went out to taxpayers from the appraisal district.
Both Powers and Melissa Carson, with the tax assessor-collector’s office, encouraged everyone to protest appraisals, if they believed them to be too high.
Carson cited an increase in appraisals for both mobile homes and commercial properties. “Every two years the value of land changes and the value of a home changes,” she said.
“From what I’m looking at and the way [the appraisals] have gone up, please go protest,” Powers said. “The only word I can think of is ‘ridiculous’,” he added, referring to some of the increases he’d seen.
Election items discussed
Several items for ballots within the county for the coming November general election were discussed at Monday’s meeting.
An order to place a local option election for or against the sale of malt beverages and wine for off-premise consumption within precinct 1 was approved. The measure needed 698 signatures to get on the ballot, and Judge Powers said that more than 700 qualified signatures were verified.
Another ballot measure in Pct. 1, from a petition to prohibit certain animals from running at large, failed due to a lack of signatures. Those animals included horses; mules; jacks; jennys; donkeys; hogs; sheep and goats.
In Pct. 2, a petition to prohibit certain animals from running at large did pass. That item, as well as a stock law election pertaining to cattle, also for Pct. 2, will be on the ballot in November.
Other Business
• The contract between all four Justice of the Peace offices and Net Data i3 Verticals for i-Ticket capability was approved. This was initially approved in April, but the contract was not signed. Pct. 1 JP Tina Self said that the i-Ticket process will allow those who need to pay fines with debit cards to do so.
• The resignations of ESD #2 board members Raymond H. Wooten; Henry E. Sawyer, Jr.; Shay Dozier and Robert Perkins was approved. The subsequent appointment of Jeff Burnthorn; Wayne Rawls; Brandon Guillory and Melody Hall to replace those board members was also approved.
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